Carney defends Obama on gun push

4/22/13 1:59 PM EDT

White House press secretary Jay Carney defended President Obama Monday against accusations that he did not do enough to ensure passage of expanded background checks for gun buyers.

The New York Times' Maureen Dowd penned a scathing column Sunday saying the measure's failure showed Obama "still hasn't learned how to govern" and arguing "he doesn’t want to learn, or to even hire some clever people who can tell him how to do it or do it for him."

Carney said the president and his administration did everything it could but in the end, a minority in the Senate ignored 90 percent of the American people who wanted the expanded checks.

"Everybody here from the president on down worked hard to bring about action on this legislation," he said.

Carney declined to say if Obama personally called the Democratic senators who voted against it, including Sens. Heidi Heitkamp (D-N.D.), Mark Pryor (D-Ark.) and Mark Begich (D-Ala.). He said the president had "numerous phone calls," but "I'm not going to detail every one of them," adding that while a phone call from the president carries weight, the views of the American people should carry even more weight.

Carney said the president remains committed to passing stricter gun laws and repeated Obama's assertion last week that this was only "round one."

"I don’t have a legislative strategy to lay out to you today, but there will be a round two," he said.